Dark Watch

by Clive Cussler

  After making calls to procure weapons, Juan had nothing to do but wait for his team to arrive. He grabbed a meal at a nearby restaurant. He hadn’t planned on polishing off the carafe of wine, but each sip seemed to work magic on the tension in his shoulders and neck. Juan rarely worried about his own safety; it was his people who concerned him.

  He’d always had a leadership style of commanding from the front, to never ask a subordinate to do what he was unwilling to do himself. For that, his people gave him their loyalty. In return, Juan knew he could trust them in any situation. But it never got easier, asking them to put themselves in harm’s way. Yes, each member of the Corporation shared in the profits of their work. Each was a millionaire at the very least, but like he’d discussed with Max back on the Oregon, this wasn’t about money, not really. It was about the dedication to doing the right thing. It was an ideal that drove Juan and his people, an ideal that someone had to face the new dangers of the twenty-first century.

  People were needed on the ramparts of freedom to stand the dark watch against any and all who were against it.

  His team had taken it upon themselves to become those gatekeepers, those standers of the dark watch. And it seemed each time Juan read a newspaper or caught the news from a satellite feed and learned of some new atrocity, he realized they would need to stand their posts for a long time to come.

  Dr. Julia Huxley was the last to arrive the next day. Rather than have her stay in the safe house, Juan had told her to take a hotel room near Zurich’s famed Bahnhofstrasse, the bank- and shop-lined street that as much identified the city as Fifth Avenue did New York or Rodeo Drive did Beverly Hills. Although Julia had proven herself on several covert operations, her primary function was as medical officer. Juan would have much rather used Linda Ross for this job, but she wasn’t the right body type or height for what Juan had in mind, nor were any of the other half-dozen women aboard the Oregon. Julia had readily agreed to come to Zurich, yet Juan made sure she was as insulated as possible from the rest of the team.

  He barely recognized her when Hali Kasim escorted her into the safe house living room. Gone were her soft, dark eyes. She wore tinted contacts that made them look watery blue behind large-framed glasses. Her customary ponytail was hidden under a wig of gray hair that curled around her head like a thinning bush. Julia normally had the curves of a 1950s pinup model, but her travel-wrinkled clothes now hid the doughy body of a prison matron. The frown lines across her forehead were deep enough to be considered corrugation, and two laugh lines alongside her mouth were like trenches.

  She looked nothing like Julia Huxley, M.D., and everything like Frau Kara Isphording, wife of convicted embezzler Rudolph Isphording.

  “Good God,” Juan greeted her, “you’re ugly enough to scare a bulldog off a meat wagon.”

  Julia curtsied and smiled. “You sure are a charmer, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. I must admit Kevin outdid himself.” Kevin Nixon ran what the Corporation had dubbed the Magic Shop, a large space aboard the Oregon where he and his team could throw together any number of uniforms, disguises, and all manner of dirty tricks.

  “We might be here for a while,” Juan said as he circled his medical officer with a critical eye. “Can you re-create this effect?”

  “Kevin showed me how to do it.” Julia shook her ample hips. “This oh-so-flattering body suit is no big deal, but doing the makeup so you can’t notice the facial appliances is tricky. I think I have it, though. It’s a little creepy. Kevin knows more about cosmetics and skin care than a counter girl at Bloomie’s.”

  “He was just nudged out for an Oscar for best makeup a few years before joining us,” Juan told her. He didn’t add that Nixon had turned his back on Hollywood following September 11. His sister was on her way to see him from Boston when her plane smashed into the North Tower.

  “Plus,” Julia added, “he packed me enough frumpy clothes to open my own secondhand shop.”

  “You don’t need to bother with the costume until we’re ready. No need to advertise there’s a Kara Isphording clone running around Zurich.”

  “What, and deny all the men a gaze at my beauty?”

  “The only head you’re going to turn looking like that is the head of a screw, and even then you’re going to need a pneumatic wrench.” Juan called out to gather his people together. In total there were five members of the Corporation present, including himself. It was a small team, but once Julia had done her thing, she could act as backup when they made their move.

  “I’ve had a chance to go over the ground, and think I found the perfect spot. We’ll need a few days for additional recon just to be sure. I’m not married to the site, so if something doesn’t feel right, don’t hesitate to bring it up. We’ll go over the ground together later on.

  “Once we’re comfortable and we have all our equipment ready, we’ll move on to phase one, and that’s snatching the real Kara Isphording.”

  “Is she guarded?” Hali asked.

  “Don’t know yet. That’ll be part of our reconnaissance.”

  “What’s gonna be our cover?”

  “All the dummy companies Rudy Isphording set up for the purchase of the Maus have Russians on their boards of directors. We’ll use that and pretend to be Russians out to spring Isphording from jail.”

  “Why would he want to go?” asked Franklin Lincoln, a SEAL vet. “As I understand from the briefing Max gave, this shyster has a sweetheart deal with the prosecutors.”

  “Because we’re going to play up the rumor about how Isphording had his hands in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s cookie jar.”

  “Has he?”

  “I’ve got Murph confirming it, but it appears old Rudy might know where some of Yasir Arafat’s missing billions are. Either way, we convince him that the PLO believes it, and he’ll know his only chance is with us.”

  “And once we have him?” Julia asked.

  Juan’s tone darkened. “We sweat him. Hard. Eddie’s still in China last I heard.”

  “Near Fouzou,” Hali interrupted.

  “So we need to learn what we can on our end and pray we’re in position to intercept the boat they’re using to smuggle him. I’m convinced Isphording’s the key to whoever’s behind the Maus and the pirates.”

  “What if he’s not?” Julia asked. “What if he doesn’t know anything beyond the shell companies he set up?”

  As much as he didn’t want to face that possibility, Juan knew he had to answer. “Then Eddie’s as good as dead, and we’re back to chasing individual pirates across the Sea of Japan.”

  For the next several hours Cabrillo laid out his ideas in detail, refining them with suggestions from his people. They all had sharp intellects and years of covert experience. No one deluded themselves that this would be a simple job, but by the time they finished, they knew they had the best possible plan. Juan gave each of them their orders for the next several days. Some would chart traffic flows and activity around the construction site. Others were to procure and modify equipment, the most critical being a ten-wheeled truck and trailer. Juan would scout out the Isphording home and determine what, if any, security they would need to overcome as well as rent a warehouse outside the city.

  Today was Tuesday. Mark Murphy had learned that Rudolph Isphording was scheduled to appear in court on the following Monday. For what Juan had in mind, they could lay a lot of the groundwork but would need the weekend to have everything in place for Monday morning. That meant they had to get to Frau Isphording no later than Thursday night if Julia was going to double her during Friday’s regular visiting hours. Juan hated the tight timeline, but there was no helping it. He didn’t dare wait another full week. God knew where Eddie or the Maus would be by then.

  It was now or never.

  “Com check?” Juan said into the voice-activated throat mike.

  He received the ready signal from Linc and Hali Kasim. Julia merely placed a hand on his shoulder, since she wouldn’t leave his side for the next twelve hou
rs. The night was dark and moonless because of cloud cover. Dew shone silvery white on the lawn surrounding the three-story brick house. The upscale suburban neighborhood had been quiet since an elderly man had returned to his own minimansion after walking what had to be the most constipated dachshund in history.

  Cabrillo knew after watching her for three days that Kara Isphording lived alone. She had a maid during the day, but at night she was her home’s sole occupant. He also knew she had an alarm system. The doors and windows were all wired, and he’d once spied the maid deactivating the system when she’d shown up for work in the morning. He guessed it would have been installed after her husband had been arrested, so it wouldn’t be too deeply integrated into the grounds, no motion detectors or IR cameras, but then again, all it took was Isphording’s wife to push a panic button, and all hell would break loose.

  “Okay, Hali, you’re up. Once Linc pops the door, you have sixty seconds to deactivate.” This was an estimate on Juan’s part but a calculated one. Kara Isphording was in her late fifties and would doubtlessly have little experience with electronics. Whoever installed the alarm would make sure a client had ample time to shut the system down so as to avoid false alarms.

  Once the ex-SEAL and the Corporation’s communications specialist did their job, they were to return to the Mercedes. Juan was approaching Frau Isphording as a member of the Russian mafia here to save her husband from Palestinian terrorists. It would be a little hard explaining the presence of a Lebanese and an African-American.

  “Think of it as affirmative inaction,” he’d joked as they finalized the plan.

  Frank Lincoln towered over Hali Kasim as they dashed from cover behind a thick hedgerow bordering the Isphording property. Both wore black. Hali carried a small duffel for his tools. Linc had his lockpicks in a slim billfold jammed into his back pocket.

  They reached the heavy oak door. Curtains were drawn over the flanking sidelights. The house was completely dark. Kara Isphording’s bedroom light had gone out three hours earlier, long enough to enter deep REM but not so long as to need to use the bathroom.

  Hali hung back as Linc readied his picks. He’d practiced on an identical lock that he’d bought from a building supply store on the other side of the city. His fingers were large, but they moved with the delicacy of a surgeon’s as he eased in the tension pick, then began to set the pins with another smaller tool. It took him eight seconds to snick back the dead bolt and a further fifteen to turn the main handle.

  He shot Hali a glance. The smaller man had his bag open and wore a tiny light mounted on a headband. He nodded. Linc eased open the door. An electronic tone sounded and would continue at five-second intervals until the alarm was shut down or went active.

  The entry floor was polished wood. A dark Oriental rug covered the space between the door and a massive staircase that rose to the second floor. To right and left were other rooms, a living room and a dining room large enough to seat ten. Hali saw all this in a fleeting glimpse. The alarm panel was to the right of the door. A red light on its cover blinked accusingly.

  He pried off the face with a screwdriver. Within were bundles of wires. He ignored them all. The circuit had already been cut. He needed the numerical key that would deactivate the system. He spotted two computer chips embedded on a small motherboard. He popped them both, then clamped a tiny wire to the broken leads as a bypass. The light and chime continued. Linc posted himself at the foot of the stairs, straining to hear if Kara Isphording had been disturbed.

  With such a system, the owner had three tries to enter the right code in order to prevent the alarm from sounding. After the third attempt the system would automatically trip. By removing the logic circuits from the panel, the security system had no way of knowing how many attempts Hali was about to make.

  Kasim dusted the alarm’s touchpad with fingerprint powder. Actually, it was finely ground pencil lead and worked just as well. He let out a relieved breath when only four of the keys showed they’d ever been pressed. The fingerprints were smudged, but that wasn’t the point. With just four numbers to reset the alarm, there were thirty-six possible combinations and not nearly enough time to run them all. Except that the four keys used by Frau Isphording were one, two, three, and four. It was the most common alarm code in the world, a convenience for homeowners and thieves alike. Hali pressed them in sequence. The little red light continued to wink at him and the chime sounded that another five seconds had passed.

  He hit the keys in reverse order and still the alarm remained active.

  “Time,” Hali hissed into his microphone.

  “Twenty-three seconds,” Juan answered from outside.

  Hali had no choice but to punch in the progression. 1243 Enter, 1324 Enter, 1342 Enter, 1423 Enter, 1432 Enter.

  “What’s happening?” Juan asked.

  “Random number. I haven’t hit it yet.”

  “You’ve got ten seconds.”

  2134 Enter, 2143 Enter, 2314 Enter, 2341 Enter.

  “Hali,” Linc whispered, “Try 3142.”

  “Five seconds.”

  Kasim didn’t question Linc’s guess. He hit the numbers and stabbed the Enter key.

  The chime sounded again and the light began to blink at double speed.

  “We gotta go,” Hali said, his voice strained with the tension.

  “Reverse ’em,” Linc ordered. “Try 4231!”

  “One second.”

  Linc’s suggestion wasn’t a reversal of the numbers, but Hali punched them in anyway: 4231 Enter.

  The light stopped blinking. The alarm had been disabled. Hali shot a questioning look at his partner.

  “Hey, man you should have paid more attention to Max’s briefing.” Linc’s smile was that of the Cheshire Cat. “Isphordings have two grown children. One born on April second and the other March first. Four/two, three/one. Elementary, my dear Hali, elementary.”

  Hali spent a few more minutes with the alarm panel to disable the panic buttons. One on this control and no doubt one next to the Kara Isphording’s bed.

  “All right, clear out,” the chairman whispered as he and Doc Huxley entered the foyer. “If we’re still inside after twenty minutes, assume everything’s okay and you can head back to the safe house. Julia will take Mrs. Isphording’s car to Regensdorf tomorrow. Once she’s back she’ll babysit her over the weekend, and I’ll borrow the car to get back to the city.”

  After Hali and Linc returned to the SUV, Juan stepped outside and dialed the Isphording residence from his cell. He heard the phone ring in his ear and throughout the house. After the third ring a sleepy voice croaked, “Allo?”

  “Frau Isphording, my name is Yuri Zayysev,” Juan said in Russian-accented English. “I am an associate of your husband. It is important that I see you tonight.”

  “Was? Nein. That is not possible,” Kara Isphording groused, switching to English. “Mein Gott, it is two o’clock in the morning.”

  “This concerns your husband’s safety, Frau Isphording.” Juan had deepened his voice, adding menace. By now she must have realized that many, perhaps all, of her husband’s clients worked the other side of the law. “I am just outside your home. Please meet me downstairs. I have already disabled your alarm system. If I wanted to harm you, I would have done so already.”

  “Who are you?” Fear had crept into her tone.

  “Someone who is trying to help you and your husband. He is a trusted member of an organization I work for, and we have learned that he’s been targeted for assassination on Monday morning.”

  “Assassination?”

  “Yes, Frau Isphording. By members of the PLO.”

  “What did you say your name is?”

  “Yuri Zayysev. I have been sent from Saint Petersburg to help your family.”

  She had to know Rudolph did a great deal of work with Russians, because after a moment’s pause she agreed to meet. Juan was relieved. He could have simply bound and gagged the woman in her bed, had Julia send away the maid whe
n she arrived in the morning, and put his plan into motion. However, that wasn’t his style. The woman was an innocent in this affair, and he wouldn’t put her through any more than absolutely necessary.

  A light at the head of the stairs came on. Made up and properly dressed, Kara Isphording was not an attractive woman. But fresh from her bed with her hair awry and her face puffy with sleep, she was downright scary. She’d donned a heavy robe over whatever she wore to sleep in, and Juan fervently hoped it wouldn’t slip open. For this meeting he was dressed in black jeans, a black shirt, and a large black leather jacket, the de rigueur uniform of an enforcer in the Russian mafia. He’d dyed his hair and five days’ worth of beard a ginger red. He also wore tinted contacts that darkened his bright blue eyes.

  “I am sorry to disturb you, Frau Isphording,” Juan said when she reached the first floor. Neither made a move to shake hands. “There was no other way. Plans are in motion to free your husband, but we need your help. You are the only one allowed to see him at Regensdorf, and he needs to be made aware of what is happening.”

  “You said someone wants to kill my Rudy?” She dumped herself into a chair. Tears were already in her eyes.

  “Yes. You may not be aware, but factions within the Palestinian movement believe your husband is the key to a great deal of their money. Perhaps billions of dollars.”

  “But…but he said that what he did for the Palestinians was legal.”

  Juan knelt in front of the frightened woman and took her trembling hands in his. “That may be true, but for these people rumor is as good as fact. They are either going to kill him on Monday or try to abduct him. We must act before they do.”